review

[cassheser]

This movie sucked!!!
They could have done so much better!
Kevin Bacon was horrible and normally I like evertything he does but this was damn sucky!
The brilliant doctor/scientist turns invisible and the only thing he can think to do is rape some girl, terrorize people and go on a killing spree?!?!!?
Pllleeeaaasssee!
I was thoroughly disappointed!

[enyiekan]

i totally agree. i mean the movie was just a waste of effex. i am so glad that i have found someone who shares the same idea with me about the movie.

cheers pal.

[Eowyn]

I have only just seen this (UK release on Video) and yup it sucked big time. The old cliche of the baddie who never dies! oooh what a surprise hes not dead yet!

So many things they could have done with the story and the choose a kill fest... BORING!

[Thulsa Doom]

HOLLOW MAN is one of those movies you either love or hate. There's no in between. If you hate everything Paul Verhoeven has ever directed (STARSHIP TROOPERS, TOTAL RECALL, ROBOCOP, FLESH AND BLOOD, SHOWGIRLS, BASIC INSTINCT) then you will undoubtedly hate HOLLOW MAN too. However if you like his "in your face" style, you will probably like this one. I go into detail on my opinions in my review here: http://www.scifilm.org/reviews/hollowman.html

(Forgive the spam, but I really didn't want to retype the whole thing here, and I won't make a penny off of your visit anyway.)

[enyiekan]

Hi Thulsa,

I preferred robocop, total recall and starship troopers to Hollow man. And i think they are jobs that were well attended to.

thanks.

those EFX could have been saved for a better plot.

[WhiteRabbit]

Thulsa Doom, I agree pretty much all the way in your review. Verhoeven does seem to split the audiences and critics, but then there are others who liked his other work (Starship Troopers, Total Recall, etc) but not Hollow Man. I thought Hollow Man was great.. not brilliant, but say a 7.5/10. I don't think the plot was as bad as some people seem to think it is. It focused so much on the psychological aspect of Bacon's character and his total loss of morals as he was overwhelmed with the power his new "gift" gave him. I think a lot of people overlooked that and just saw it as a lame story where a guy goes mad and starts killing people.

Having said that, the film did have it's share of clichés (Sebastian had more lives than a cat ), and moments that were a little stupid. The plot wasn't perfect either.. I felt it had more potential, but it's not as bad as some people think.

On the whole, I think this movie is pretty underrated and has undeservingly been given a hard time. Some people just didn't seem to appreciate what Verhoeven was trying to accomplish (or maybe they just have a grudge after Showgirls ).

[zombie84]

well i liked it, as ive liked every one of Verhoevens films. You know its not that hokey, up until the first hour its a fairly thought-prevoking and scientific film. i liked the psychological aspect of the film, i thought that was a very neat twist. The last half hour turned into typical slasher stuff, but i didnt mind it because it was still cool and entertaining.
to the guy that complained that after he turned invisible all he could do was play practical jokes, rape a girl and kill people, i felt that this was an intersting direction. if you were invisible im sure you would seriously consider things like that, i know i would (not rape or murder, but peeking at girls undressing and messing around with your enemy's). you can see how Sebastian becomes more and more deranged as time goes on, it starts off with him simply playing harmless jokes on people, then cheking out that girl in the lab and fondling her and then it escalates to him raping his neighbour and then eventually he begins killing people. not the greatest movie, but i would say you get your moneys worth from it.

[Thulsa Doom]

One of the aspects that I most liked about HOLLOW MAN was the fact that Kevin Bacon's character wasn't a card board cut-out villain. I was able to understand his motivations and find him likeable (at the first). And you have to admit that the Superman/Wonder Woman/Invisible Man joke was pretty funny (if you are sick and twisted that is). He also had a darker side like most of us do. But that didn't mean he was going to automatically go out and start raping women and killing people. I think that occurred as a result of the serum/being invisible affected his mental balance. If you remember at the first, the gorilla (who had apparently been calm enough and friendly enough for them to be willing to enter the cage and give it injections) went beserk and bit the guy's hand, so they had to tranquilize it. Apparently the invisibility was beginning to affect its mind. So I think that's what happened to Sebastian. It took his darker side and amplified it while eliminating or supressing his normal inhibitions (that would keep him from acting on his tendancies) Remember the attraction he had for the girl in the beginning (hell, who wouldn't be attracted to her?).

Now the films biggest weakness was the end when Sebastian kept coming back to life. That was very cliche. You don't get burned like that and get up. You get burned like that and wimper and lay there. The plot was very straight-forward slasher. Like I said in my review. The first half is excellent, the second half boiler-plate. But it was still a pretty daring effort in an otherwise dull year.

[floyd]

less like hollow man, more like hollow film. It was without question missing a lot that could have made it much better.

[ThinWLady]

In a way I like Bacon and Shue. The effects were almost excellent. They really caught my eye at times.
It's weird but this film made me think about Deep Blue Sea... In both films almost the whole group gets killed by a... scientifical test and that's too often used thing in this kind of movies.

[La_Lune]

Effects scared me... But the plot seriously sucked big time.